California is a place of invention, a place of courage, a place of vision, a place of the future. People who made California what it is were willing to take risks, think outside convention and build.

Other people might have family - three kids or five houses. In my case, that doesn't exist. I'm going to give everything away. Everything has been transferred to charitable trusts. There is no question about that. The question is where, not if.

L.A. is very special to me, so far away from my world on the East Coast, Europe, Asia. It's a bit of an island for me - less intense, less busy; because of time difference and location, it has a calming effect. At least it used to be all that.

Commodity exchanges have a lot of advantages. One, you are helping transparency. Two, they are not political. It's institutional building. It can survive any environment, in theory.

California has something which not every place in the world has: It has what I would call a sunny side, and I don't mean just physically, but the sunny side is a future. California's worth saving, to put it bluntly.

The biggest determinant in our lives is culture, where we are born, what the environment looks like. But the second biggest determinant is probably governance, good governance or a certain kind of governance makes a huge difference in our lives.

Possessing things is not that interesting. Living in a grand environment to show myself and others that I have wealth has zero appeal.